For All of Time
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: After jumping into the time stream, Clara has flashes of memories from her past lives every now and then. In one, she remembers her life as a Time Lady and realises that she was the doctor's first wife.


The dreams come mostly at night, forgotten by morning, but sometimes they come as flashes, randomly, at the mere glimpse of an object, or the whiff of a scent… sometimes it's the feel of a fabric or the tinkle of a wind chime, sending her mind rolling over memories that leave her on the verge of tears or with a faint smile. She feels like each trip drives her further back in time and when she absently speaks to him in Gallifreyan sometimes, sometimes after a long adventure when she's exhausted and her mind is freely open to the memories casually swimming about, she finds him staring at her with a recognition and longing she doesn't quite understand.

She'd worked in a factory, she remembered – she'd helped him steal a Tardis just as the Time War had begun. Of course, he says he doesn't remember. The Doctor offers a sad smile and he says he remembered a young woman who reminded him of someone else and she'd teased him, watching curiously as his body stiffened and his eyes avoided hers.

He says it'll fade, the events of her scattered lives bleeding through her consciousness will gather themselves into the back of her mind for her safety, and Clara knows they have – the connections aren't as intense as they were when she'd first emerged from his time stream, but the one today brings her to a complete stop. Her breath catches in her throat on the knowledge, the identity that had kept itself hidden for as long as it possibly could, and she feels a flood of ice flow over her body at that particular ghost and then, _slowly_, a soothing warmth of understanding.

His hand is still lingering at her cheek, thumb finishing its way across the space just underneath her left eye as she looks up to him to see the way the years tick back on his face in her mind, leaving her with his youthful first face, smiling at her just as he was now. They're standing just inside of a home, a home furnished with ridiculous things she can remember acquiring with him through travels and at local marketplaces and she's laughing with him as his hand drifts off her face and down into the basinet where their daughter is waving her arms and kicking her feet wildly at them, eager to be picked up.

"_She definitely takes after you_," Clara could hear herself saying, a light chuckle as she leans into his frame, her head landing comfortably at his shoulder as his arm comes up around her, fingers squeezing lightly.

His breath is hot on her temple when he responds, "_Strong-willed and beautiful… I beg to differ_."

When she looks up again, his loving smile, the one that playfully widens as she laughs, fades away and she stumbles back away from the Doctor on the console as reality comes crashing back around her. It had been the most powerful jolt of all of her echoes, offering more than just a glimpse into a life and a death, but a palpable connection to the hearts that had beat inside of her chest then and every emotion they had lived.

It had given her a clear burst of the love she felt for the Doctor, and it was strong enough to turn the world upside down on her as she heard him call her name. Clara reaches out for him and he catches her by the arms just before her legs give, lifting her up against him and rushing her towards the first bedroom to lay her down, hand immediately at her forehead.

He's speaking, but she's not properly hearing the words, as if her mind had momentarily lost its ability to process them to English and she realizes she's expecting Gallifreyan and she forces herself to focus, to reconnect to her reality and then his voice quietly utters, "Clara, are you alright?"

"I was your wife?" She whispers in shock, hearing the intake of breath mere inches from her and feeling the bed shift with his weight as he sits up, hands slipping off her while her brow wrinkles against the aching just behind it, the memory trying to back away painfully while she tried to hold on. "On Gallifrey," she continues, eyes opening slowly to find him staring down at her, face red and on the verge of crumpling, "We lived in Acadia, for a time, I think, and we had a baby gi…" she winces at the stabbing pain.

He exhales a shaky breath and she can hear the sob behind it as he offers, "The universe doesn't want you to remember; it's too dangerous."

"How," she smiles weakly, forcing herself to look up at him just as his hand reaches for her neck, a gesture now so familiar to her it sends a tickle of electricity over her body when his flesh connects to hers. Her eyes slam shut against a barrage of images, of their first meeting – randomly in a field as children – through a friendship that took them through schooling and fights about the risks and consequences of time travel and the benefits and places they'd wanted to see, to a courtship that saw them sneaking off with shared giggles through a factory neither were really allowed to see. Their first trip in a stolen Tardis and how they were reprimanded when they returned, Clara's mother and the Doctor's, standing side by side, arms crossed over their chests at the sight of their children, half dressed and giddy, exiting the silver tube in an awkward dance with one another.

Clara reaches out and the Doctor finds her arms, holding her steady as she shouts out against the wedding that took place next to a red mountain, long blades of grass tickling her legs underneath the pale dress she wore and the way he'd cried as they'd wrapped their hands. She saw the growth of her stomach and felt the movements in her womb and she listened to the infant's first sobs and then her laughter and eventually her first words. Clara watched her youthful husband turn grey with the years and she watched their girl become a young woman and take a man of her own.

Her eyes snap open as she inhales deeply, painfully, and releases a choked cry, "I died trying to save her; _I couldn't save them…" _she trails, seeing the Daleks and the blasts of light shooting across spaces, people falling to the ground with grunts of pain as their hearts failed permanently. The Doctor shakes his head, wishing he could stop the images she's seeing now, knowing what she's experiencing, tears rolling over reddened cheeks. Clara sheds tears of her own as she murmurs, "I couldn't and we…"

"_You saved Susan_," he breaths, lifting her to touch his forehead to hers, turning his head slightly before adding, "And I took her to the stars, _like we'd wanted to_."

Clara's grip on him tightens as she shakes her head against his and asks quietly, "Did you know? _All of this time_?" He whispered a quiet 'no' and Clara frowned, "How could you not know? _My face_…"

He releases a small laugh then and lets her lay back against the pillow, thumb again running across the skin of her cheek as he waits for her to look up at him to see the sad wonder in his eyes. "How could you be her?" He sniffles, "I thought maybe it was my imagination – It's been over a thousand years, surely my memory's been damaged through regeneration after regeneration… and then I thought it was the cruel joke of an abominable universe. The woman who helps me throughout all of time and space carries the face of my wife." He breathes a chuckle as he watches her breathing slow, mind already shutting itself off to the firestorm of synapses to save her. Knuckle sliding knowingly over her jaw, he explains, "I turned a blind eye because it was _easier_ than bearing two broken hearts over you again."

Clara nods slowly as he laughs, telling him softly, "_But you knew_."

The Doctor bends slightly, kissing her forehead and whispering, "Sleep, love, _all will be right when you wake_."

She exhales, drifting off, and sighs up at him in Gallifreyan, "_Will you be mine again_?"

Kissing her gently, he replies, "_For all of time_."

He strokes a hand over her hair, the way he used to so long ago on Gallifrey, waiting for her to relax, for the thoughts that had been burning up her psyche to slip away and he turns to cry then at the affirmation of the answer to the question that had been tucked away in the back of his mind, turning over his hearts, for decades. The Doctor watches Clara sleep knowing in the morning those memories would be locked away again to save her and he'd continue travelling with his wife until the inevitable end.


End file.
